Scientists find source of courage in brain
June 24th 2010 23:37
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From: National Post
Most of us are familiar with the “fight or flight response” to situations that we find threatening. But what is it that happens to allow a person to willingly choose to engage in an activity that frightens them?
A study published today in the journal Neuron set out to answer just such a question:
The Roman philosopher Seneca considered all humans slaves to fear. Yet given the right circumstances, ordinary people can set themselves free of this bondage and act courageously. How is this achieved?
To do this, researchers led by Dr. Yadin Dudai, from Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science assembled a group of volunteers and some non-poisonous corn snakes. The volunteers were both people with a strong fear of snakes and others with no fear. People from each group were shown the snakes and they either asked for them to be moved closer or farther away. While this happened, an MRI scanned the volunteers’ brains.
As a control, the same process was done with toy bears, which none of the volunteers was afraid of.
The MRI showed that those with a fear of snakes who asked for them to be moved closer had increased activity in a region of the brain called the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (sgACC).
The sgACC activity increased relative to the amount of fear felt by the volunteers. Those who were afraid of the snakes but had them moved further away had none of the increased sgACC activity.
Now that researchers have pinpointed the source of “courage” in the brain, it may lead to treatments to help people overcome debilitating fears, the study concludes:
Specifically, our results delineate the importance of maintaining high sgACC activity in successful efforts to overcome ongoing fear. They hence point to the possibility of manipulating sgACC activity in therapeutic intervention in disorders involving a failure to overcome fear. Such interventions may range from training in meditation techniques that lead to greater activity in this region to transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) similar to that attempted to alleviate depression.
Maybe someone should tell the researchers that a cure for lack of courage is already readily available in liquid form.
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